Machine-to-machine (M2M) communications can be generally defined as communications from or to a device that is not directly employed by humans. A variety of devices can be said to originate or terminate M2M communications. M2M communications has been deployed for several decades in many different scenarios.
Wide-area M2M refers to M2M applications where the devices span a large area and the communication solution relies on a wide area communication network such as a mobile cellular network. Like most wireless communication environments, communication security in an M2M environment using cellular communication devices is considered an important factor for wide scale adoption of M2M services. However, adequate solutions for security provisioning protocol for wide area network communication devices in an M2M environment are not currently available.
Thus, a need exists for security provisioning protocols for communication devices in an M2M environment and, more generally, in any open device environment.